Saturday, April 30, 2005

Heaven is where Whiskers went when he died. . . my brother, Whiskers.

I love watching music videos. VH1 Classic, VH1 Mega Hits, MTV Hits...these are all amazing video channels, in my opinion. Non-stop videos with minimal commercial interruptions -- it doesn't get much better than that.

And MTV2 gets it right for about an hour a week when it airs the video show "Subterranean." (We'll discuss "Wonder Showzen" later). Jim Shearer hosts and plays videos by Rilo Kiley, Interpol, the Decemberists, Phoenix, etc.

Last week they played "Galang" by M.I.A. (my new favorite female Sri Lankan rapper). I should've been thrilled. But the fact that they censored about half of the chorus is just a little bit ridiculous to me.

"Razor blades, Galang-alang-alang/Purple haze, Galang-alang-alang" became just

".......Galang-alang-alang/............Galang-alang-alang."

I'm guessing that they edited out "razor blades" because of their whole you-can't-mention-any-type-of-weapon thing. But "purple haze?" Does anyone have an idea why this is offensive?

Now about "Wonder Showzen" --

The best part of the show is undoubtedly the "Q&A" section, when 5 year olds are asked questions like "What is Heaven?"

Some responses:

"That's where drunk daddies drive to."

"It's when you order a six-piece nuggets, and you get seven nuggets and a switchblade."

"(sigh) I'll never know."

"Seven and a switchblade."

Y'all should watch this show, at least just for the Q&A and the "Beat Kids" segment.

You'll see.

1 Comments:

Blogger Donny Viszneki said...

"Razor blades" is not a reference to weapons, it's a reference to cocaine. Purple haze is a sort of marijuana. Interestingly, UMG posted a "Clean Version" of "Galang" on YouTube, but I cannot identify which parts have been changed.

12:36 PM  

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